Overtime

I urge the City Council to stop all this overtime for city employees ("Overtime budget buster," June 30). It reflects badly on the City Council's leadership and is poor management and oversight in these difficult economic times. These people are essentially raising our taxes and should be stopped immediately. The City Council should say no to all overtime except in emergencies like the snow storm. We shouldn't have to pay more taxes to keep over 800 of the same people for the last three years earning more than 30 percent of their salaries in overtime.

It's been a busy year so far for Audrey Dyer-Brown, collections supervisor at the city Department of Public Works. Her job duties have ballooned - and so has her paycheck. By early May, she'd already made 87 percent of her yearly salary, even though the year was just one-third over. Thanks to a whopping 538 hours of overtime in that span, she took in $22,280 above her regular pay, giving her gross income of $37,500 by May 8, according to figures provided by the city. Her regular salary for the entire year: $42,900.

The No. 1 Bryn Mawr field hockey team had a reality check Saturday at the South River Invitational, while No. 4 Glenelg and No. 5 South River fought it out for the title. South River won the tournament, 3-2, in overtime on a blast by senior captain Courtney Thompson. "It was definitely exciting," Thompson said. "We decided to move me down further for the hit in overtime because the field was so rough further out. When Stacey [Mackintosh] got me the ball, I realized I had the perfect angle … and I just hit it as hard as I could.

With eyes that were beginning to water in the corners, Loyola coach Charley Toomey explained his decision to call the timeout that wiped out what would have been the go-ahead goal with less than a minute left in regulation. It was a decision made before Blake Burkhart won the faceoff clean and deposited the ball in the goal. The score didn't count, though, because Toomey had called that timeout. And so the Greyhounds' game with Duke went into overtime, and the Blue Devils scored the winning goal with 1:40 left in the second overtime to win 12-11, sending the defending national champions home.

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So, once again, it is only because of the vigilance of The Baltimore Sun that an issue like this overtime is raised ("Overtime budget buster," June 30). But, of course, now that The Sun has shined the light on it, everyone will react. Too bad that good management policies weren't already in place. In the Sheriff's Department, for example, we are told that there is a "new requirement that supervisors submit a weekly hourly total for commanders to review." This is a new requirement?

For a solution to the problem of excessive overtime pay costs in Baltimore City, we need only review a bit of history. The Fair Labor Standards Act passed in 1937 was a job-creation technique. It established the 40-hour work week with penalty pay, also known as overtime pay, for hours worked over 40, weekends, holidays, and so on. This was a time of heavy unemployment. The hope was that by limiting working hours, more people would be employed. The health benefits of a more reasonable work week were incidental, but considered.

Kickoffs get the boot Bill Kline The Morning Call In the catalog of things that are unfair - right up there with broken NBC promises and oil cartels and Wendy's scrapping its salad bar - is the outdated NFL overtime rule. The team that wins the coin flip and returns the kickoff often needs only two or three first downs to get into field goal range. Game over. Solution: Retain sudden death, but abandon the kickoff. The team that wins the coin flip can start on offense but must do so on its own 15-yard line.

The McDonogh boys lacrosse team watched their four-goal lead vanish quickly in the fourth quarter of Saturday's match against St. Mary's. But the No. 5 Eagles bounced back in overtime. Junior midfielder Austin Frederick scored with 54 seconds left in the 4-minute overtime period to lift the Eagles to a 12-11 win over the No.4 Saints in Annapolis. Frederick finished three goals and three assists, Evan Glaser had four goals and an assist and goalie Nick Doyle stopped 10 shots to help pull out the win. The Eagles improve to 6-5 on the season and 2-2 in the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association's A Conference, while the Saints (8-4)

Scott Mackenzie's lone goal of the game was the most significant one for the Princeton men's lacrosse team. The senior midfielder's blast from the right wing propelled the No. 8 Tigers to an 11-10 overtime win against No. 5 Johns Hopkins in the Konica Minolta Face-Off Classic at M&T Bank Stadium on Saturday. The game-winning play occurred when the Blue Jays tried to double-team Tigers junior attackman Jack McBride. Standing at the left point, McBride (three goals, one assist)

No. 12 Salisbury got off to a rousing start with a 22-2 blowout of Susquehanna in the first round of the NCAA tournament Wednesday. The victory earned the reigning national champion a second-round date with No. 8 Washington and Lee. The Sea Gulls won 15 of 20 games this season, but one of those losses came at the hands of the Generals, which secured a 7-6 win in double overtime on Feb. 20. The setback followed a 13-12 loss to Lynchburg four days...

With the ball in his stick in overtime of Monday's Anne Arundel County boys lacrosse championship, Arundel junior midfielder Aaron Snyder kept the plan simple. The result was much more than that. Snyder scored 50 seconds into extra play to give the No. 10 Wildcats a 7-6 win over No. 8 South River at Northeast High to capture the program's second county championship - its first since 1999. South River came into the game as the defending county, region and Class 4A-3A state champions, with a 10-6 win over the Wildcats already in the books from the regular season.

On Latin Night, Jacoby Jones and partner Karina Smirnoff lead off the dancing with a salsa dance. There's a new twist this week where whichever couple scores highest on their regular dance will get “immunity” and the other couples will then dance to add extra points to their scores. It's a pain when my silly dancing show makes me use my brain. During rehearsals, Karina has fun with a partner as strong as Jacoby, pretty much hurling herself at him so he can catch her.  And sometimes she hurts him in the process.

Marriotts Ridge senior Zoe Stukenberg showed there was one key to the No. 8 Mustangs' 13-12 girls lacrosse win over archrival Mount Hebron that lasted into the fourth overtime: Don't quit. Stukenberg, an All-Metro midfielder headed to Maryland, scored not only the game-winning goal with 1:13 left in the fourth overtime period, but she also scored the tying goal with 1:02 left in regulation and assisted Jenna Kerr's buzzer-beating goal to tie the game at 12 in the first overtime. "We were dragging," Stukenberg said.

Sam Snow scored the game-winner with 56 seconds left in overtime as the visiting Fairfield men's lacrosse team upset top-ranked Denver, 10-9, Saturday in front of an announced 2,520 at Peter Barton Lacrosse Stadium. The Stags (8-5, 4-2 Eastern College Athletic Conference) recorded the program's first win over a No. 1 team. The victory gives the Stags a spot in the ECAC championship May 2-4 at Hobart. Denver fell to 10-3 overall and 5-1 in league play. Michael Roe won the opening faceoff of overtime and Fairfield called a timeout.

Led by a 23-save performance by freshman Kieran Burke, the No. 3 North Carolina men's lacrosse team beat No. 15 host Virginia, 10-7, Saturday. The Tar Heels (8-3, 2-1 Atlantic Coast Conference) were outshot 51-32 by the Cavaliers (5-6, 0-2), but Burke made the most school saves since Paul Spellman had 25 in a 10-6 win over Maryland on March 22, 2003. Marcus Holman (Gilman) had three goals for Carolina. Georgetown 14, No. 6 St. John's 13, OT: Dan McKinney scored the game-winner with 3:24 left in overtime as the Hoyas (5-6, 2-1 Big East)

It's been a busy year so far for Audrey Dyer-Brown, collections supervisor at the city Department of Public Works. Her job duties have ballooned - and so has her paycheck. By early May, she'd already made 87 percent of her yearly salary, even though the year was just one-third over. Thanks to a whopping 538 hours of overtime in that span, she took in $22,280 above her regular pay, giving her gross income of $37,500 by May 8, according to figures provided by the city. Her regular salary for the entire year: $42,900.

They waited through a three-hour delay for the start of the game because of a broken water main and then endured two overtimes, a raucous crowd at Cassell Coliseum and a Virginia Tech team that hadn't lost at home all season. In the end, the Maryland Terrapins survived, and celebrated with a thrilling 104-100 victory. It was Maryland's first win here since the Hokies joined the Atlantic Coast Conference and continued what is now a five-game winning streak going into Wednesday's showdown with Duke at Comcast Center.

Last Saturday's 15-14 overtime loss to Hartford saddled UMBC with a 0-1 start in the America East. The team is just one game behind the Hawks, No. 19 Albany and Stony Brook in the conference standings, which is why coach Don Zimmerman said Saturday's home contest against Vermont (3-7 overall and 1-0 in America East) is critical. “That's the way we're approaching it,” he said Thursday morning. “You don't want to go 0-2 in the conference. So with that said, I would say that this is a must-win.” The Retrievers (3-6)

If the No. 5 Stevenson men's lacrosse team needed any more motivation heading into Saturday night's contest at Mustang Stadium in Owings Mills against No. 8 Lynchburg, the visiting Hornets provided it - with their feet. The Mustangs emerged with a 12-11 overtime decision, but they got some inspiration when Lynchburg decided to run a lap around Stevenson's side of the field during pre-game warm-ups. According to Mustangs coach Paul Cantabene, NCAA rules prohibit teams from venturing across the midline during warm-ups.